Last week on Desperate Housewives, Lynette flirts, Susan breaks off her engagement, Gabriele gets engaged, and Mrs. McCluskey's secret is out. How will the Wisteria Lane Housewives entertain us this week?

Edie, the witch, slyly manages to let Gabby know about her and Carlos while at Gabby's engagement party. Surprising no one, Gabby is NOT happy about it. She later confronts Edie and tells her to find her own man or face the consequences. You know how Edie is about challenges and picks up the gauntlet. Gabby rallies Lynette and Susan against Edie. Susan, still in her “I hate men” mode, asks why blame Edie, blame the man. But Gabby leans on their friendship and convinces them to ice out Edie. Not just cold, mind you, but Gabby wants “icicles hanging from that beyotch's ears”.

Lynette and Rick continue their flirtation in the restaurant after closing. She's begun to lie to Tom about what's going on. The next day, Tom's daughter busts her about her lying. That doesn't stop her, though, as she later accepts a 'date' with Rick to attend a tasting at a Soul Food restaurant.

Susan, bless her heart, has problems. After telling both Mike and Ian to let her be, some poor guy cuts her off and takes her spot in a parking lot. Susan berates him, trips him, steals his keys to move his car, gets in and starts his car, then almost decapitates him when he sticks his head in the window to grab the keys from her. With his head stuck in the window, she makes him say “I'm a rude, arrogant bastard who needs to treat women with respect”. The police come to rescue Susan from the carjacking, only to find the guy needs rescuing instead. She has to go to therapy to deal with her 'anger issues' and after spilling her guts to the therapist, she's told that it would be stupid to let both men go.

Edie realizes that she's being frozen out and when she complains to Carlos, he tells her that he told her that Gabby wouldn't take it well. So she comes up with a plan of her own. She manages to thaw Lynette by giving Scavo's the catering job for Travis' birthday party and Susan by buying copies of her book for autographing at the party. They both think Gabby will be out with Victor so feel safe in attending the party. Of course, it doesn't work out that way, Gabby catches them and confronts them at the party. Carlos picks her up, throws her over his shoulder and carries her off. They have it out with both expressing their hurt over how they found out about the other's relationship. Carlos asks her why she gets to be mad when she's in love and getting married, and he's just having fun. Gabby gets this little satisfied smirk on her face when she realizes that she still has Carlos.

Gossip all over the neighborhood about Mrs. McCluskey and her husband. When some of the neighborhood kids egg her house, Parker talks to his dad about feeling really bad for her. Some of the neighborhood hooligans paint the word witch on Mrs. McCluskey's door, but when Parker attempts to defend her, he gets pushed down. He asks her why she doesn't just tell people what really happened. She finally tells the Wisteria Lane ladies that she found Gilbert dead, but didn't tell the authorities when she found out that she was not the beneficiary of his pension, but his 1st wife was. She needed the money so she put the body in the freezer and kept cashing the checks.

Susan tells Mike that she's made her decision and that she's going to marry Ian. She tells Ian and we see them kissing. When she thinks Ian has gone up to bed, Susan listens to the goodbye message that Mike has left on her answering machine. Ian watches as she replays the message and looks longingly at the machine. When she goes up to bed, she finds Ian packing his stuff. He tells her goodbye, that he realizes she's still in love with Mike and that he's going home to England.

Lynette and Rick are getting ready to go on their 'date'. She's found someone to lock up and everything. Just as they are about to leave, Tom brings the family in for a late supper. His daughter spies Lynette talking to Rick and later plants seeds of suspicion in her dad's head. The next day, Lynette asks Mrs. McCluskey to babysit again for her and she gratefully accepts, saying that she's gonna need a raise. When Lynette tells Tom, he informs her that he's ready to go back to work and that now they can get rid of Rick. When Lynette defends Rick and tells Tom how valuable he is, Tom gets this strange look on his face.

The next morning, Ida comes to Susan's house to return some misdelivered mail and tells her that Mike packed his car in the middle of the night and left. Susan realizes that it really was a goodbye message on her machine.

The Mary Alice voice over tells us that Gossip is a form of harmless recreation and we're left with the following scenes:
-the restaurant workers gossiping about Rick and Lynette and how you have to flirt with her to become assistant manager and Rick overhearing,
-some neighborhood runners talking about how although Carlos is dating Edie now, everyone knows that he's still in love with Gabby and Edie overhearing,
-and a kid bike rider confronting Mrs. McCluskey about her husband in her freezer and admits it.

How do we protect ourselves? By telling the truth and waiting for people to start talking about something else.